Main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange plunges to 838 points

UNITED KINGDOM November 02 2016 4:07 PM

LONDON (Scrap Register): The main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange for ships carrying dry bulk commodities plunged on Tuesday mainly due to weaker cape, panamax and supramax rate.

The Baltic Dry Index, which provides an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials – such as coal, iron ore and grain – by sea by taking in 23 shipping routes measured on a time charter basis, down by 19 points to 838 points on Tuesday.

The index is based on a daily survey of agents all over the world. Baltic Dry hit a temporary peak on May 20, 2008, when the index hit 11,793. The lowest level ever reached was on February 10 2016, when the index plummeted to 290 points.

The BDI’s recovery since hitting its record low last February has been largely due to increased demand from Asia for key cargoes such as iron ore and coal; therefore, a stagnation in this market could apply a lot of downward pressure to the BDI.